Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Tuesday's Gone

ZilchNot much to write about. I got out and played and sang pretty well last night, until after an hour or so of not making any money, I decided to save my strings, which are still fairly new; for a better time.I don't know when that time might be, as Wednesdays are infamously slow.

Not Shown

I wound up drinking all the money that I had last night, and ran into people such as Blue, the stripper and the guy who plays the water jug; who bought me more.

Jesse, From The Hokum Highrollers I had a good conversation with Jesse, who plays guitar and harmonica, and who jams with the likes of Yes Ma'am and The Hokum Highrollers when such musicians are in town.He was across the street from Rouses Market at the spot shown in the photo and had made about 21 dollars after being there at least 2 hours. The musicians that he usually plays with are at more lucrative places right now, such as Denver, Colorado; which, I hear, is really hopping in the summer months when we are suffering here.Clearing The Whole Place Out Jesse talked about how he started to make his own instruments when he was a kid.He made something which resembled an electric guitar, but he put all the frets the same distance apart, something like an inch; rather than trying to use the logarithmic spacing which produces the 12 tone scale which we are all familiar with (unless we are cloistered away in India with only a sitar to play).He said the result was the most horrendous sound imaginable.
"But, even though it wasn't pleasing to the ear, I thought it was interesting and I liked it," he said
He and a percussionist friend went into a crowded coffeehouse in California with the thing and they "cleared the whole place out," he added with a smile.He wears a plaid shirt, work pants and a baseball cap with the name of some construction company or something on it -looks like he just got off work at a farm- when he plays.His harmonica playing is very crisp and accurate because he has the parts memorized and doesn't try to improvise anything on the spot; as opposed to my method of jumping in on a note and then tryng to take it wherever it wants to go.We got on the subject of musical notation.He told me that he pens a lot of his songs on manuscript paper, practicing an ancient art which is in danger of becoming lost; due to the emergence of "tablature" as the preferred medium of a lazy new generation -too lazy to want to deal with sharps and flats and double sharps and flats and 12 different keys.
This morning there was a cart with at least 100 back issues of Sheet Music Magazine sitting in the "free" section of the library.I am tempted to try to stuff every one of them in my backpack.This can't help but to expand my repertoire.